Chapter 6 - THE APPLAUSE THAT KILLED AN EMPIREDaniel let out a dry, humorless laugh that cut through the silence of Eleanor’s declaration. He walked over to my mother, standing tall in his modest tweed suit beside her multi-thousand-dollar Chanel dress.
"You really think you're safe, Mrs. Callaway?" Daniel asked quietly. "You think immunity covers obstruction of justice for sitting on stolen federal funds while knowing they belonged to wounded soldiers?"
Eleanor’s confident smirk wavered for a split second. "My legal team—"
"Your legal team resigned twenty minutes ago," Daniel interrupted, pulling out his phone and showing her an email notification. "I sent them the secondary ledger containing your personal wire transfers to fund your art gallery acquisitions using veteran relief grants. They dropped you faster than a sinking anchor."
For the first time all evening, the silence was broken not by gasps or crying, but by a single, sharp sound: slow, rhythmic clapping.
Everyone turned.
Sitting at table two, elderly industrialist Arthur Vance—my father’s oldest business rival and former best friend—was slow-clapping, a twisted, triumphant grin spreading across his weathered face.
"Bravo, Robert," Arthur called out, his voice gravelly and dripping with malicious delight. "Thirty years of acting like God Almighty, and you get taken down by a high school history teacher and your own humiliated daughter in Navy blues. This is the best Christmas show Hartford has ever hosted."
May you like
Robert lunged forward again, ignoring the admirals holding him, his face purple with rage. "Arthur, you bastard! You knew about this! You helped set up the audit trail!"
"Of course I did," Arthur laughed openly, standing up and adjusting his tuxedo jacket. "Somebody had to keep you from running the state economy into the ground, old friend. And now? Callaway Logistics is officially bankrupt. The board has already voted to strip your name off the building by midnight."
